The images in this gallery are from a slide presentation compiled by the former Director of the Cedarville College Library, G. Paul Wyland, in 1960. The descriptions of each image are from the narrative that accompanied the slideshow.
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Wyland Slideshow - Underground Railroad Hiding Places
One of the many hiding places used in the various stations was basements such as the one shown here. This is the trap door used to let the slaves down into their hiding place.
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Wyland Slideshow - The Jackson Home
The Jackson house, built in 1808 near Cedarville, was another underground railroad station. This basement room had a a fresh water spring which furnished water for the household.
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Wyland Slideshow - The Jackson Home Exterior
This stone house was partially torn down in 1953. It has housed many run-away slaves. Slave owners were very indignant over the escape of their valuable slaves, and in 1853 got the fugitive slave law passed. This law required that all run-away slaves found in the North be arrested and, without trial by jury, be returned to their masters. Other laws also made it a crime for anyone to assist the slaves in their escape. Needless to say, many of the people in Ohio, as in other Northern states, followed a higher law, that of God, instead of the federal laws.
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Wyland Slideshow - The Jackson Home Fireplace
Here next to the fireplace are indentations which presumably were filled with book cases behind which the slaves hid. Greene County had many, many Underground Railroad trails and stations.
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Wyland Slideshow - 1864 Enlistment Banner
In 1864 this banner came to Ohio for leading the other states in enlistments, proportionately, in the Union forces. Likewise, Greene County led the other counties, and Cedarville township led within the county. It has been said this banner came from Washington and was sent by President Lincoln. However, at this time there is no information of any document having accompanied the banner. It is made of fine silk and has the shape of the official flag of Ohio. On the face, in gilt, it reads, "Ohio has sent 291,952 of her gallant sons to the field." The reverse says, "Ohio, true to the Union." Displaying the banner is Dr. Hammond, President of the Greene County Historical Society.
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Wyland Slideshow - Civil War Headstone
It has been said more United States' lives were lost in the Civil War than all our other wars put together.
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Wyland Slideshow - Cedarville's North Cemetery
In Cedarville's North Cemetery, this monument was dedicated to the memory of our heroes, 1861-1865, erected by Vinna M. Harper in honor of her husband, George W. Harper, in 1916. In his second inaugural address in 1865, Lincoln had stated, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds". On April 14 he said, "I hope there will be no persecution, no bloody work after the war is over." This good will was cut short by an untimely death due to the fatal shooting by John Wilkes Booth. Although the North lost a beloved leader, and the country lost a President, the South lost a friend when they needed one the most.
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Wyland Slideshow - Miami Powder Company Plant
This pictures what was left of the Miami Powder Company Plant which was started in 1846 in Goes Station. It had produced black gun powder for the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and First World War. It closed about 1918.
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Wyland Slideshow - Grant Hall
A result of the Civil War was the founding of the Ohio Soldiers & Sailors Orphans Home in Xenia. the Honorable R. B. Hayes, later Governor and then President, helped organize it in 1869. At first it was in downtown Xenia, but moved to its present location in 1870. It started as a frame house. In 1870-71 this building, Grant Hall, was built. This home housed dependents of Ohio's Veterans.
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Wyland Slideshow - Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home/Collier Chapel
Collier Chapel, on the OS & SO grounds was built in 1880. Behind the chapel is a graveyard.
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Wyland Slideshow - Collier Chapel Grave Yard
In the 1880s many children died in a plague. The large stone in the foreground marks the resting place of a nurse who died at her work in the epidemic.
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Wyland Slideshow - Covered Bridge - Stevenson and Jones Road
This is one of Ohio's beautiful covered bridges. Pennsylvania leads the states with the greatest number of covered bridges, while Ohio is second in number.
